9/3/13

So, here’s what we got done over the long weekend.  Saturday, John picked me up in Fifi and we went to the old shop to get Hugh Jass, the big fan.  We loaded it and had a look around for other stuff we might need.  I think we grabbed the radio and maybe something else.  We headed to the new shop.  There we unloaded Hugh and got to work fingering out if the lights were going to work.  We swapped bulbs in a couple fixtures and got them working well enough.  It was decided that we’d get cracking on that hydraulic throwout bearing so the transmission was placed on top of the tool box.  I read the instructions again and finally started to get the gist of what they were saying.  I measured the distance from the block’s rear face to the face of the crank and wrote it down.  The next measurement required the clutch pressure plate and disc to be bolted to the flywheel… there were two problems with that plan: 1) we didn’t have bolts, and B) we DID have the wrong flywheel.  The ‘wheel we had is for a Chevy and neither of us have any idea how we wound up with it.  John was fairly certain he “tripped over” another non-Datsun flywheel just that morning when we were getting the fan so we decided to go back to the old shop and look.  While we discussed that, I asked, “So, what time does the movie start?”  John, without missing a beat said, “Eleven thirty.”  So the plan evolved into the following: we would go back to Beenbroke, look for the Ford flywheel for five minutes, and then go to see “The World’s End.”  We locked up the new shop and headed back across town.  At Beenbroke, John walked right to the Ford flywheel and picked it up.  We rounded up the hand cleaner and paper towels this time and headed to see the movie.  I'm afeared I went into it with too much anticipation.  I don’t know what I expected, but that wasn’t it.  I liked the movie, but was ever so slightly disappointed.  I'd say it was as good as “Shawn of the Dead” but nowhere near as good as “Hot Fuzz,” the other two entries in the “Three Flavours of Cornetto” film trilogy.  After the movie, we went to Wasabi for lunch.  Our usual waiter got sniped by the newbie and didn’t wait on us.  Chaim, as one of us kept calling the noob in a monumental case of potentially anti-Semitic stereotyping, was a terrible waiter.  We left mediocre tips and headed back to the new shop to drop off the stuff from Beenbroke.  By the way, I am going to miss getting to call the shop that.  It is quite appropriate.  Anyhoo, after we looked at stuff for a few minutes at the new place, I took John home and went home myself.  Sunday I picked Larry up and we drove to Mesquite on the other side of Not Texas to a gun show.  I'd read in the NRA’s magazine a review of Sarsilmaz’s SAR K2 pistol and wanted to grok one.  It is a Turkish copy of a Czech CZ pistol design in .45 ACP which holds 14 rounds in the magazine.  That is twice as many bullets as the venerable 1911, what most people think of when Juan says, “Forty-five automatic.”  Fourteen friggin’ rounds of .45 ACP!  I had to see one.  We found one for a reasonable price, $519.00, and I fondled it for a bit.  The sales dude put the hard-sell on me.  I asked what the credit card price would be and he said he’d waive the 4%.  I hemmed and hawed a little more and when he said, “I'll waive the CC fee and give it to you for $510.00,” I was hooked.  I shouldn’t have done it, but I did.  Oh, I had brought along several optics I had collecting dust in the drawer to try and sell them.  They did all sell… at a significant loss, as usual.  Larry wound up buying some 9mm ammo instead of another CZ pistol so I was proud of him.  He kept berating himself saying, “I should have got the gun instead,” but I said that ammo was a better purchase.  I took him home and went home myself.  Monday I went shopping for stuff with mom.  We started at Sears where I got two new pairs of steel-toe “tennis” shoes, and two pairs of pants.  Then we went to Lowe’s where we bought grab-bars and a shower head for my new shower and a bathroom scale.  I should have done that several months ago when my old scale went tits-up.  I'm back up to 295 pounds… and I'm not happy about it.  After Lowe’s we ate at Olive Garden and I had to laugh because John and I had just discussed how OG and Red Hamster are both places “White Trash” thinks are “Fancy.”  I do enjoy the chicken and gnocchi soup though and don’t have any pretense that OG is “Fancy.”  After lunch I sent Larry a text asking if he wanted to go shoosting.  We agreed that I'd pick him up around 1400 h and we’d go to Shoot Smart.  I picked him up at 1430 h and we went to Shoot Smart.  There was a half hour wait to get in the lane.  When we did get in the lane I was reminded of what a pain in the ass their target system is.  It must have been designed by Erno Rubic.  I pushed every mother fucking button on that mother fucker and all I could get it to do was send the target all the way to the end and then come all the way back in.  I ripped my target off and packed up my gun without firing a single shot.  I told Larry if he could figure it out, he was welcome to shoot his stuff but I was done with that place.  I sat in the lobby while he shot.  When he came out, I got up from the couch by the register and walked up to the girl.  I said, “Looks like ‘we’ are through on lane two now.”  I tried to pay the “second shooter” fee since it wasn’t Larry's fault I wasn’t willing to figure out their damned machine.  He wouldn’t hear it and paid the whole thing.  I hoped they would try to give me a “membership card” when they returned my ID so I could just drop it on the counter and say, “Yeah, I won't be needing THAT.”  They didn’t.  I swear, you had to be a member of Blechley Park to figure out that fucking Enigma Machine.  After I dropped Larry at his house, I went to Boyd and drove past the farm.  Then I stopped in at the cemetery and “visited” dad, Uncle Ted, aunt Esma, and my grandparents buried there.  I took the scenic route home and watched “Top Gear” on BBC America until bedtime.  And that gets y'all caught up.